Richard Lawson and Stefanie Lee put their heads together one last time for the Mad Men Season 3 finale. The episode marked a turning point in the lives of the ladies and gents of Sterling Cooper, who have reached new professional highs while sinking to personal lows. What a way to end the season, eh?

RICHARD SAID:

This season was absolutely trying to explore the nature and mechanics of uprooting and change—and was wholly satisfying, if still elusive and mysterious, in that endeavor—but it was also about yearning back, about chasing down some lost idea.

Well Stefanie, here we are at the end. Or, as the case seemed to be last night, at the beginning! What a fitting way for Matthew Weiner and crew to wrap up the third season, one that was all about aching and stretching, about swimming with and against the riptide of Change. We spent all season wondering how the Kennedy assassination would affect these characters, how the distant drumming of the latter-1960s revolution would sound to these precariously-perched elites. For much of the season it seemed as though most of our sad friends would be unable to adapt, that they'd be lost and drowned in the current, forgotten detritus from a forgotten age. But what did we get instead? Sterling Cooper's own quiet revolution, a willful, brave, heart-warming surge into the future. A brand new era of egalitarianism and humility. The new Sterling Cooper Draper Price is a place where good and deserving folks can prosper, where women and men work in close quarters (a hotel room) and thus become equals, where adventure and excitement are the orders of the day.  Well, it looked that way for a moment, didn't it?

Given that this is Mad Men, I don't really see the sunshiny new hope of the newborn agency lasting terribly long. Things on this show (and in life) tend to curdle and sour, nothing stays golden, no matter how pure and hopeful their beginnings. We saw the other edge of this sword last night with the crumbling of Don (Jon Hamm) & Betty's (January Jones) marriage—while Don gained this new can-do work family, he lost his real one at home. Betty, stoked anew by strange cool blue fires, ran off with Henry to Reno to get a quickie divorce and begin this new, perilously-unplanned life. I mean, she barely knows Henry. Sure he's an avatar for good and decency and honesty and general anti-Donism right now, but I don't see the situation staying all roses and happy afternoons forever. And the pain that the split is causing the children, left at the end of the episode to sit with their real mother Carla, didn't seem to be something that Betty really seemed willing to consider. There se was, shielding her eyes from her son's raw sadness, preferring not to see it, to no step into it. I don't blame Betty for leaving, but her methods are, as always, cold and strange. They're young and unsteady. In the end I'm disappointed that she and Don have split up, but am curious to see her in a new context. I want to see her continue her own revolution and open up, thaw out, have a little fun. I'd love to see her run or sweat or wear blue jeans. (I like how they subtly shifted her to pants this season.)

I guess in recapping the season finale, we really should be talking about the season as a whole. What do you think, Stefanie? Are you satisfied with the new brushstrokes in this American painting? I think I am. I think somewhere toward the end of the last season I finally resolved my heart to the fact that there wasn't always going to be some Buffy-esque Big Bad to be conquered every year on this show. That the dynamic of the program is slightly more atonal and asymmetrical than that. Like life! Though, there were definitely little parallels between season's end and season's beginning. We began back in August "Out of Town," and ended, well, with kind of the same thing. Don trudging alone into some anonymous building, a man on the road, a boy forever headed to Chicago to save his family's farm.

This season was absolutely interested in exploring the nature and mechanics of uprooting and change—and was wholly satisfying, if still elusive and mysterious, in that endeavor—but it was also a look at how yearn back, about chasing down some lost idea. We got this feeling in brief moments—Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) dancing sadly in a mirror, Don and Betty playing the parts of daring people in love while in Rome, Roger (John Slattery) putting on merry party facades even though his insides are turning about as pale and bleak as his hair. There was a lot of pretend, a lot of childlike regressing. I suppose that's a visceral and understandable reaction to change, to want things back the way they were or could have been. How nice for Don and Roger then that they did kind of get to go back and start over, to press the reset button and become young hotshots entering the world again (or, really, for the first time, in Roger's case).

I like this idea and I think it's a happy one. That it's rarely ever too late. We might not all have the money to start our own advertising agency, but most of us (I hope all of us) do have our own kind of agency, an ability to create change, to maneuver time. Sometimes it's hard to get going, but once you do, growing feels good, it's necessary and life-affirming. I think I was maybe a little narrow-minded to think that it was either Go Hippie or Die with all this looming Summer of Love stuff. No, I think last night the right kind of change began to happen, change that is smaller and more personal and not explicitly tied into some sociopolitical movement. It was just Don and Company growing as people. As people do. As they always have and always will. So there was an inevitable and simple sense of hope about last night's conclusion. People figure it out. People leave, people arrive. People keep going.

Well, unless you're Kinsey (Michael Gladis) and Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), who, it would appear, are stuck on the old sinking ship. I'll be bummed if they're written out, and will miss all of the other denizens of the old Sterling Cooper, ditzy secretaries and all. Maybe by next season (summer 2010... ugh) SCDP will have grown large and heavily-staffed. For now though, I'm just so thrilled that the ever-competent Joan (Christina Hendricks) is back, and in such graceful manner. And good for Peggy, and good for Don for finally saying what she needed to hear. And good for Harry (Rich Sommer) for being so prescient with his TV stuff. Good for Price for being fun and British (guess his wife isn't going back to London any time soon), good for Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) and Trudy for being increasingly adorable, and good for Cooper for not giving up even though he's an old dude. I just loved all the work scenes last night. And I felt pierced by the dissolving marriage scenes. A happy ending at work. A sad ending at home.

All told, a big, bittersweet beginning.

STEFANIE SAID:

They’ve all got that 60’s mindset, even if they don’t realize it yet. They’re kids avoiding the draft—except in their case, the army is a huge corporate ad agency.

Bittersweet indeed, Richard. There was a big part of the SCDP puzzle missing last night, and it was former Art Director Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt). I got so excited when they decided to start their heist with the Art Department, figuring they’d call in Sal just as they’d called in Joan a few moments earlier. But it looks like his ship has sailed, at least for the time being. I’d like to think that Weiner et al will bring him back in Season 4, because his story was way too important to abandon, but you can never be too sure.

Other than that (predictable, I know) complaint, I have to say that I was rather satisfied with the episode, too. It felt cinematic, but not in the sweeping, operatic style of many episodes this season. No, it was kind of like watching the first half or so of Ocean’s 11—a noticeably beautiful ensemble cast pools their skills and resources to commit the crime and come out on top. Their actions were even peppered with tension-building string melodies and humorous quips between characters. They were their own Justice League—albiet with a very law-firmy name—destined to start anew, chosen to forge ahead, ready to tackle the world of 1960’s advertising. And they totally pulled it off—probably because it didn’t really seem like a crime. The only casualties were Kinsey and Cosgrove. I agree with you, Richard, and hope they won’t be written out, but I can’t help but think that their miniscule presence this season was their one-way ticket out of what you called “this American painting.” Perhaps Kinsey will get a few more brushstrokes, what with his beard and his interracial relationship and his forward-thinking actions, but Cosgrove is a goner.

It truly is exciting to see SCDP venture out into the unknown. They all have these indispensible tools at their fingertips, from Cooper’s money to Don’s campaigns to Joan’s instincts to Pete’s savvy. I can hardly wait to see Don take the lead in this new company, Roger learn a thing or two about hard work, Campbell finally put his innovative ideas to good use, Crane get the credit he deserves, and so on. And to see them starting from the ground up in a hotel room? It’s all very grassroots, and it’s refreshing. Two years ago, it would have been impossible to picture these conservative-minded people going against the grain and taking a risk and pulling themselves out of the rut they were all so obviously in. But they’ve all got that 60’s mindset, even if they don’t realize it yet. They’re kids avoiding the draft—except in their case, the army is a huge corporate ad agency. They’re speaking to each other honestly, openly, confrontationally—think of Don speaking to Cooper or Peggy speaking to both Don and Roger. They’re demanding the best from each other. They’re all smiling and making progress. They’re forming a little cooperative, much like the farm Don lived on as a kid. And, yes, Richard, they’re pressing that reset button. Peggy and Joan will have more power at SCDP than they ever have before, so long as everyone eventually moves out of the hotel room. It could get awkward.

Speaking of moving out, Don’s got some new digs! Too bad Sally has already developed severe daddy issues and will probably require several years of intense therapy to combat the damage that’s been done. And Bobby will probably be one of those guys that always needs a girlfriend so he can complain to her about what a jerk his dad was when, in fact, he just never got to know him. The Draper family has never really been a family, because none of them are really the Drapers. Maybe Betty’s big little trip to Reno will give them all a chance to reinvent themselves. As the Francis family, as the Draper-Francis family, as whoever. I am pretty skeptical about this marriage, too, though. You’re right, Richard. Betty and Henry don’t know each other. Like, at all. She just needs the companionship. She can’t think on her own, but she can’t bear to be single. She’d rather be appreciated and loved and taken care of. And probably have a little more time to go horseback-riding again.

With Betty and Don on the outs, that leaves plenty of room for Mad Men’s healthiest couple ... Pete and Trudy Campbell? Who’d-a thunk that? They really are getting cuter, more united, more loving, and it’s a pleasure to watch. I suspect it won’t last for long, as you said, because this is Mad Men and he’ll be working under the same roof as Peggy and Duck will show up to sex up Peggy in another room in the same hotel and blah blah, but for now, I picture them Charleston-ing around their Christmas tree and sipping brandy-laced cocoa by the fireplace. A quaint holiday. And certainly quainter than everyone else’s.

It’s fascinating—and frustrating—that we won’t see them in the winter months, especially considering everything that’s happened. How will Betty manage her house? Her friends? Her children? How will Roger and Joan interact? How will Peggy and Don forge a friendship? We’re going to miss pivotal moments in the growth of SCDP, of the new Francis family, of all of these people. But when we come back in August, we’ll have so much juicy stuff to catch up on. It’s going to be great.